MOONSHINE HIGHWAY 1996
> FASTER THAN THE FBI
FASHIONED after Thunder Road and other moonshine-running flicks of the 1950s and 60s, 1996’s Moonshine Highway is a more modern take on the ‘drivers versus feds’ theme of those earlier films. In 1957, decorated WWII veteran, hotshot driver and serial cigarette-bummer Jed Muldoon (Kyle Maclachlan) carts moonshine in his hotted-up Lincoln tanker from his pappy’s (Leslie Carlson) mountain property by dawn, and canoodles with local hottie Ethel (Maria del Mar) by night. Unfortunately, Ethel is the estranged wife of the crooked Sheriff Miller (Randy “shitter’s full” Quaid), who is struggling to take their break-up with any grace.
With his palm regularly greased by other local moonshiners to have him look the other way, Sheriff Miller is hellbent on nailing Muldoon alone for the crimes. However, pressure from a visiting federal agent, Bill Rickman (Alex Carter), is cramping his loose lawman style.
Facing pressure to get results, Rickman recruits local stock-car racer and ex-moonshine runner Dwayne Dayton (Jeremy Latchford) to do the chasing in his souped-up ’55 Chevy, and the pair start shaking down some of the smaller distillers in the hope of nabbing the bigger players.
In a desperate move to take the heat off himself and start a war between Muldoon and the other runners, Sheriff Miller kills Muldoon’s father in cold blood, stirring up a hornet’s nest of trouble in the process.
With his loyal mechanic mate Hooch (Gary Farmer) having tuned the hot-rodded Lincoln to perfection, Muldoon decides to skip town with Ethel and make a fresh start, but first he must survive one last run against three other challengers, all of whom are out for his blood.
VERDICT: 4/5
ALTHOUGH primarily a made-for-tv flick, Moonshine Highway punches well above its weight. The actionpacked chase scenes are uniformly strong and include the most epic fireball crash I’ve seen, bar none. The occasional cringy, overdubbed squeal of ‘Hollywood tyres’ detracts a bit from proceedings, but for the most part, the vehicular details are on-point, with heavenly sounding straight pipes the order of the day.